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5870 to 670 on C2Q (Q9450) CPU?

Nate Silvers

Nate Silvers

Nate Silvers

Soldato
Joined
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Hull, East Yorkshire
I'm thinking of upgrading my 5870 for 2560x1600 to a 670. I am still on the old C2Q architecture (Q9450 @ 3.2Ghz). Would it be worth it to upgrade the 5870 without upgrading everything else? I'm running 4GB Dominator RAM, ASUS Rampage Formula and 650W PSU.

I've seen the 670 is quite a bit faster than 5870 but is that because the 670 benchmarks was done with newer CPUs resulting in better performance from the CPU AND GPU?
 
For that res, I suspect a single GTX670 would probably only do minimum frame rate of around 30fps if with some eye-candy turned up in some slightly demanding games...so I think your CPU would be around good balance with it. It is only when you try to get more frame rate by lowering the graphic details further that your CPU botteneck would become more apparent...but yea, it still depend on the games you play as well, as some times there are games that are CPU demanding that don't use all 4 cores.
 
Thing is I wouldn't say the system is struggling, I get at least 50fps max on Saints Row 3, Prototype 2, Witcher 2 (1920x1080) all ultra with uber off.

CSGO I get well over 60 maxed and that's suppose to love CPU power. I was getting good frames at 1920x1080 well above 60 on most games but they have gone down with 2560x1600 so maybe it's just the graphics card?

I don't want to upgrade the full system until the next gen consoles are out, that way when I do rebuild the PC will be better than the consoles. Most games these days aren't demanding enough.
 
Do you know the specs for the next Xbox? They usually use pretty new tech so you have to go a few steps better to make up for the games using console hardware optimization.
 
Nah just speculating. But to keep the cost down they can't go too high on it. I reckon 6670 level only to be fair on the graphics card front. I don't think they could really go much higher than that.

A 7850 new specced i5 SB machine will be way beyond the next round of consoles in my view.

Time will tell :)
 
^
+1

Nate Silvers said:
I've seen the 670 is quite a bit faster than 5870 but is that because the 670 benchmarks was done with newer CPUs resulting in better performance from the CPU AND GPU?
Click to expand...

Keep the 5870 and the £300 will get you a very good Z77 setup, sell on your 5870/775 stuff and put that toward your gpu and use the onboard igp, or hold on to the 5870 if you can't go without the 5870.

You are really wasting your cash putting a 670 in that system, it just won't perform to what you see in the reviews.

:)
 
Rusty0611 said:
Nah just speculating. But to keep the cost down they can't go too high on it. I reckon 6670 level only to be fair on the graphics card front. I don't think they could really go much higher than that.

A 7850 new specced i5 SB machine will be way beyond the next round of consoles in my view.

Time will tell :)
Click to expand...

+1

They are never going to put too much technology into a console as they are limited to 1080p.
 
I want to upgrade but don't quite have the money after dropping it on a U3011. I think my CPU is good for now as it can play Sniper Elite V2 on low graphics over 120FPS, soon as I put the graphics to Ultra I get dips into 40. I think the 670 would be good to drive the high resolution?


After some research looks like my CPU is fine for now. "My friend has a Q6600 @ 3.2GHz and a GTX 680 too. His FPS is only about 5% worse than mine with a i7 920 @ 4GHz."
 
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Okay just done some tests and I get 49% CPU usage in Prototype 2 and only 40 in the Witcher 2 on Ultra which goes to as low as 12% most of the time. This is with 20-30fps at ultra with 2560x1600. Who needs an i5 I need a GPU upgrade that's all.
 
Not the best games to check as they're GPU intensive.

Anyway, it's fine for now but you should consider upgrading to 8GB of RAM. That will help your overall speed.

And it will start to bottleneck movings forwards
But right now, you're OK.
 
Nate Silvers said:
Okay just done some tests and I get 49% CPU usage in Prototype 2 and only 40 in the Witcher 2 on Ultra which goes to as low as 12% most of the time. This is with 20-30fps at ultra with 2560x1600. Who needs an i5 I need a GPU upgrade that's all.
Click to expand...
Best to look at GPU usage rather than CPU usage to be honest. If your GPU usage struggle to hold 99% usage, then you have a CPU bottleneck it is as simple as that.

It's difficult to identify if there's a CPU botteneck by looking at the CPU usage alone, as there are situations that games only using 2 or 3 cores, which the TOTAL amount of usage wouldn't go above 50% and 75% on a CPU with 4 cores.

Specifically fot Witcher 2, it is a game that BOTH CPU and graphic demanding. With but for 2560 res, the GPU bottleneck would be greater than that of the CPU on Ultra settinga (without undersampling).
http://www.techspot.com/review/405-the-witcher-2-performance/page6.html
http://www.techspot.com/review/405-the-witcher-2-performance/page8.html

5870 that does an average frame rate of 30fps on 2560 res vs Athlon II X4 3.10GHz that does average frame rate of 42fps.
 
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Marine-RX179 said:
Best to look at GPU usage rather than CPU usage to be honest. If your GPU usage struggle to hold 99% usage, then you have a CPU bottleneck it is as simple as that.

It's difficult to identify if there's a CPU botteneck by looking at the CPU usage alone, as there are situations that games only using 2 or 3 cores, which the TOTAL amount of usage wouldn't go above 50% and 75% on a CPU with 4 cores.

Specifically fot Witcher 2, it is a game that BOTH CPU and graphic demanding. With but for 2560 res, the GPU bottleneck would be greater than that of the CPU on Ultra settinga (without undersampling).
http://www.techspot.com/review/405-the-witcher-2-performance/page6.html
http://www.techspot.com/review/405-the-witcher-2-performance/page8.html

5870 that does an average frame rate of 30fps on 2560 res vs Athlon II X4 3.10GHz that does average frame rate of 42fps.
Click to expand...

Damn you're right I just turned Saints Row 3 to lowest res and graphics and I'm still only getting 46-55fps and cpu is at 50% up and down whilst the GPU is only using 60%.

Arkham City at 1280x800 on lowest settings gets 29 Minimum, 113 Average and 229 Max FPS. The GPU is using like 20% and the CPU is mostly 25% but a lot of time can go to 10%. The FPS in the city can drop to 37fps the game has these little spikes sometimes, is that just bad coding?
 
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tommybhoy said:
^
+1



Keep the 5870 and the £300 will get you a very good Z77 setup, sell on your 5870/775 stuff and put that toward your gpu and use the onboard igp, or hold on to the 5870 if you can't go without the 5870.

You are really wasting your cash putting a 670 in that system, it just won't perform to what you see in the reviews.

:)
Click to expand...

What motherboard would you recommend for a i5 2500k?
 
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